Sometimes everything just comes together at once.  This weekend it was the Triton Invitational Water Polo Tournament at UCSD, and the La Jolla Rough Water Swim at the La Jolla Cove, interrupted only by a Saturday night of …JAYSIS!

This was the first year in years I didn’t attend both days of the big local water polo tournament.  In fact we only caught two games on the first day.  Both were blowouts, preordained by some heavily weighted brackets.  We caught Long Beach blow out Redlands, and UC Davis dominate Pomona-Pitzer.  We caught the tail end of USC’s 28-2 trounce of Claremont too, but didn’t even realize the significance at the time because someone had mercifully turned off the East Pool’s scoreboard.  

Sunday was spent at the La Jolla Cove watching the La Jolla Rough Water Swim.  We got there early, grabbing coffee and bagels on the way, and made a day of it.  A friend of Randy’s was competing, and we met some new people, and made the now ritual promises that we will be in the water next year.  It’s only one mile, and the sharks are tiny, and there are lifeguards everywhere, but the race start on the tiny beach still terrifies me.  That and I’d really like some of my various pains to go away.  The plantar fasciitis has kept me out of the gym too much this year.   Feel free to hold me accountable here if next year’s pictures don’t include Chuck dripping wet.

Finally , JAYSIS!  Creamy goodness dripping down my chin.  Steam on the windows as though all four burners were going on the stove (which they were).  Decadence in all its cholesterol-hardening glory, with a special shoutout to the other Chuck.  

I guess there’s a whole series of these, but this was the best I saw. [via]

Traffic spiked on the law firm website Tuesday.  Didn’t really think about it, but it was interesting to see a whole bunch of searches on my full name.  The given name, not the familiar Chuck.  

Then this afternoon I got some e-mails through an e-mail address posted at KPBS, where I still post at Citizen Voices on election issues.  

Apparantly I have the same name as some kid in Ohio who is suspected of starting that nasty rumor about Sarah Palin and her baby.

For the record, I’ve never posted anything at DailyKOS, and certainly don’t have the time or energy to make up some fake persona and do posts at yet another website.  I have enough trouble keeping this site and beachlaw semi-current, keeping my wonderful editor at KPBS happy, and doing the work that pays some of the bills around here.  Not to mention maintaining my tanlines, planning a wedding reception and obeying the puppy’s every command.

Ohio rings a bell though.  Columbus, Ohio.  I think I flew over that state once or twice in the old days.  I suspect plastic crack has come to life and is running amock, trying to cause the collapse of our civilization as we know it.  That or a Hoont has just virtually nipped me.  Just kidding - I know the Hoont wouldn’t do that.  Must be the crack.

Bill Melendez, an animator with six Emmys to his credit, but more importantly voiced Snoopy in A Charlie Brown Christmas, passed away today in Santa Monica.  The MSNBC obituary mentions his involvement in 70 TV specials, four movies and hundreds of commercials, and his IMDB listing shows Peanuts productions as recent as 2006, when he would have been 89.  Melendez was reportedly the only man ever authorized by Schulz to animate the Peanuts characters.

Google Chrome is wowing me out of the box.  Easy install, very fast running, and with none of the hiccoughs non-IE browsers usually give me at secure sites.  Getting used to the placement of the bookmarks list might take a while, but other than that it’s making a great first impression.  Particularly loving how it handles those sites where ad servers normally slow down the page loads: load the content and then point out the problem servers by name as you wait for them, or not.  

Interesting experience catching a matinee of Altar Boyz playing up at the Lawrence Welk Theatre this afternoon.  The audience was definitely of two minds: the people there for Altar Boyz and the people there because it was at the Lawrence Welk.  The group I went with loved the show, despite some of the blue hairs actually interrupting the show to yell that it was too loud.  Even walking out they couldn’t show enough respect to the rest of the audience to do so quietly.  It was a great show, and most of the audience definitely seemed to appreciate the humor of the show and the amazing performances of the cast.

Outside after the show, Erik McEwen, the very cool actor who plays the token jew in the Catholic boy band was talking to some of the appreciative audience members, and when asked commented on how shocked the cast was at the outburst from the audience.  The show’s been running since July and this was the first time they’d seen this type of reaction.

I’d write more about the show, but I think the North County Times’ review nailed it, so go read Frankie Moran.  Spinner’s exhausted, and I think I should be too. 

Between the Olympics and the Democratic convention I’m a bit really quite sick of cheerleaders and talking heads and silly speeches.  So then come the thought: what if instead of spending four days waving flags, and telling each other how wonderful they are and how much they don’t deserve the reputation their party’s leadership has earned them during the last seven years, thousands of Republicans rewrote their airline tickets and redirected their minivans and went to the Gulf Coast to volunteer with hurricane evacuees?

Although personally I think they deserve to have their convention speeches underscrolled by reports of rising flood levels, and maybe alternated with some archival footage of President Bush congratulating Brownie on his heckuva job during Katrina, wouldn’t it be nice if thousands of politically motivated Americans would do something good instead of something pretty?  They’ve already got the time off work, don’t they?

Wow!  Amazing perspective from the 10m diving platform.  Found myself getting a little anxious even though there’s no way of falling off from here.  [via]

Sarah Palin?  Well, she is a fellow Vandal. Go to KPBS if you have any thoughts you want to share.

We owe an incredible debt to Del Martin for her advocacy over the years that led to us having the right to get married.  So, how ironic is it that I was sitting here working on invitations for our reception when I learned about her death?